Sarah Shahi – Filming ‘Nancy Drew’ in New York City 3/19/2016 – celebmafia.com

What do they mean by Too Female?

It could mean a lot of things but mostly it means that they believe that it won’t appeal to their core demographic. Which is apparently mostly men between the age of 18 and 49. Which is the demographic that most networks seem to be targeting.

That’s why you get a kickass character like Detective Kate Beckett (Castle) and Doctor Constance Brennan (Bones), but the studio insists that they work with a male lead. Sometimes it works, and sometimes the male is just boring like Body of Proof where the male cops were about as interesting as the corpses. (Mostly less.)

Rarely do you get a mystery show where you have a female lead that isn’t saddled with a male partner to appeal to the “male demographic”. Other than Veronica Mars and Murder She Wrote, the only one I can think of is Rizzoli & Isles.

Does Gender Matter?

From a story perspective; no. You can tell a fantastic story with a male or a female lead.

From a demographics perspective; I don’t know. I’m not your typical man and I can’t speak for all men. I enjoy female leads, and I think a smart intelligent character is awesome. Female led shows have done well in the past; Veronica Mars, Buffy, Xena, Murder She Wrote, Star Trek Voyager, etc.

I have gotten more than one funny look when I’ve mentioned my love for Gilmore Girls or Disney Princess movies, so the stereotype is there.

The one place that it absolutely matters is in representation. I can turn on the tv and press any combination of buttons and there’s a huge chance that I’ll end up on a show with a main character that looks like me. (White male, 18-49) There are good guys that look like me, bad guys, smart, dumb, etc. etc. etc.

We don’t have the same for women. It’s improving but it’s not there yet.

Scoring

Points

Fall

Winter / Spring

Unknown

Pilot Airs

0

5

10

Survives Past Sweeps (End of November)

5

N/A

N/A

Full Season Order

10

10

15

Full Season airs

15

15

20

Second Season Renewal

20

20

25

The Code (working title) starring Jason Priestley – who also serves as an Executive Producer – as an ex-pro hockey player who uses his celebrity status and reputation as an enforcer on the ice in his new gig as a crime-solving PI.

Some days require more coffee than others. Feel free to quote me on that.

The Quest

A few weeks ago my brother recommended that I check out The Quest. I wasn’t all that interested at first but then I watched an episode.

Let’s just say that so far I’m loving it!

For those that don’t know, it’s a reality show with a scripted storyline, set in a fantasy world. The major reason I didn’t want to see it was my lack of faith in reality TV. I expected it to be filled with bad versions of fantasy with hammy actors and cut throat pretty people as contestants.

I was wrong. It seems everyone involved loves Fantasy and they’ve gone to great depths to make it awesome. The actors are great, the contestants are fantasy geeks.

It does like to spend time on drama and some of the challenges feel a little low budget but it’s a lot of fun.

I particularly like the Hag who lives in the woods. She really got into it.

Watch it on ABC in the US or CityTv in Canada.

Novel?

I have a bad habit of being inspired by things that I like. The Quest isn’t an exception.

While I watched, I wondered what if the cameras were hidden and the contestants started to wonder if it was real or not. Imagine the emotional effect of the end of second act realization that all the “Banished” characters were killed.

Think what it would mean for the characters who don’t understand it isn’t a game.

I really like this idea for a novel and I’ve even written a proof of concept for one of the characters. I was expecting it to be 500 words but it quickly ballooned to 2000.

I’ll post it on Thursday.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

I was challenged and then challenged my wife.

For those of you who live under a rock, the challenge is to bring awareness about ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease or Charcot Disease).

It’s a terrifying degenerative disease that affects muscles. From what I understand your muscles slowly atrophy. It’s paralysing, painful, and those affected have a short life expectancy.

The challenge says that if you can, you should donate $10 to the cause if you’ve dumped a bucket of ice water on your head and $100 if you didn’t.

My video and my wife’s video.

Charity Drain

Last estimates see the challenge having raised over 80 million dollars.

Some people are saying that the success of the campaign has been stopping people from donating to other causes. I don’t want to be the reason that other causes suffer, so I’m encouraging those that can afford to donate to multiple charities at the same time.

I donated to the Canadian Diabetes Association in memory of my Mother who died of complications related to diabetes in 2008. I also donated to the Canadian Cancer Society in memory of my Father who died of brain cancer in 2010.

I love the television show, Castle. When I heard they were going to release a book that was “written” by the main character, I pre-ordered it months in advance.

The first book was good. It was an ok police procedural and it felt like it could have been written by Richard Castle. I pre-ordered the second and it was barely passable. The writing was clumsy, filled with angst, and felt like it was written by someone who didn’t know the series.

I was so disappointed by the second that I didn’t pick up Heat Rises, the third, until it was in stores. Even then it took me nine months to work up the courage to read it.

Was I ever surprised! This is by far the best written, most authentic, and most entertaining of the series.

If you don’t like the show, or haven’t seen it, this book isn’t for you.

Below is my review. For more information on how and why I review books read my post here.

Characters

This is a strange concept. For this book to succeed it has to not only create interesting and well rounded characters. It also has to mimic the voice of Richard Castle. Who is also a character. It’s Meta in many ways.

In the other books, I could believe that maybe Castle wrote them. This book felt like it was written by Castle. Each of the characters that are based off of other characters in the show, acted the way they should. The voices were perfect.

The only problem I have with the characters, relates to how perfect they are. It makes it very difficult to separate them from their TV counterparts. A real author wouldn’t make the comparisons so blatant and I felt like the writer was pandering to the audience at times.

For characters, I give it 4 out of 5

Writing Style

The writing style was exactly what you’d expect from Richard Castle. It was witty, quick, and interesting. The writer even took time to add a few jokes that Richard Castle wouldn’t understand. For example, at one point someone tells Heat that she could be a Bond girl. Stana Katic was a bond girl in Quantum of Solace.

For what it was, it was good. I give it a 3 out of 5.

Story

Wow was this story stretched. It took way to long for it to build up and then twice as long to finally get somewhere. I’m not a big reader of police procedurals, I can’t judge if this was normal.

Don’t get me wrong, it was an interesting story and I’d say it was even better than some of Castle’s season endings. It was just a little slow at times.

I give the story a 2 out of 5

Fun

Despite all it’s faults, I love the television show and I had a lot of fun with this book. I felt like I was connected to the show. I didn’t find it hard to read and I enjoyed most of it.

I give it a 4 out of 5 for fun

Overall

This is a great book for fans of the TV series. Read the first one, skip the second, and definitely read this one.

If you don’t like the series, move along. This isn’t the book you are looking for.

If you’re a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, either the series or the original movie, than you might have heard that there are talks of a Reboot movie.

Whether you’re outraged at the thought of a Reboot or of Whedon not being involved you must admit that the story has a lot of interesting angles.

If I were to write the new Buffy movie here’s what I’d do:

Cast:Buffy Summers: Molly C. Quinn from Castle. She’s a little young but has the acting chops to pull it off. Joyce Summers: Amy Adams as the Ju-jitsu instructor/ Anthropologist mother. She normally doesn’t play action roles but would be great with Quinn and could definitely train for it. Watcher: Gerard Butler as a non-action geeky “Supernatural” nerd type of watcher.Villain: Gary Oldman as a brutal and intelligent vampire.Comic Relief: Andy Serkis and Paul Bettany as overeducated fast talking vampires.

Storylines:There would have to be several storylines running through the movie that hasn’t been done before in Buffy history. Within each of the storylines there would be several mini stories.Main 1: Buffy discovers her powers and as a preppy cheerleader is unprepared for them and is thrust into a dangerous situation. I’d avoid a lot of the high school stuff after she discovers her powers and concentrate on her strained relationship with her mom as she teaches Buffy how to fight. Main 2: Villain is trying to kill the slayer. He became a vampire to save his daughter from some disease having to turn her into one too but it didn’t help. He’s been trying to find a cure for her disease. Finds some old book that says the still beating heart of a Slayer cures anything in vampires.Love: In a twist the love story wouldn’t involve Buffy but her mom and the watcher. Reverse damsel in distress scenario.Comic: Having most of their clan wiped out by the Villain, our comic reliefs decide to try and help him by catching Buffy but continuously fail. I want to make clear these “clowns” are going to be more of a cheesy/witty comedy that will lend itself to a darker story.

Opening:I think it would be very important to set the scene with a dark and dirty backdrop in a large city alley where a “traditional” slayer is kicking vampire ass hand to hand. Her watcher looms in the back and as he watches her a shadow comes behind him and slits his neck.

She wins the fight and slays her last foe when she gets shot in the head by a vamp sniper on the roof. The bullet goes through her head and into a propane or natural gas tank. The shadow screams in anger and literally runs up the building towards the sniper and kills the vampire and howls into the night.

Then we go to a cheer practice where Buffy is basically teaching the choreography and doing some things that surprise even her. This is interspersed with scenes of her mom teaching an advanced weapons Jujitsu. Early in the sequence you see a man hiding in the shadows watching Buffy and at the end you see the same man walk up the Joyce and try to stutteringly tell her about Buffy. She of course ignores it and promptly forgets.

Then we’d go to the mother picking up Buffy and them arguing. Something should slip about the Dad being dead (3-4 years.) I really want you to get the feeling that they are all each other have.

/*start rant
I’ve been regularly tuning in to watch TSCC and I have to say I’m getting less and less impressed. The storylines are choppy unbelievable and frankly boring. I’ll keep watching it for now, I’m not easily alienated.

There are few things that make Mondays seem exciting, The Pirates of the Caribbean Soundtrack is certainly one of them.

Dollhouse, the new Joss Whedon show, and Terminator The Sarah Connor Chronicles are going to be back to back on Fridays in Winter. The only show that’s managed to thrive in that timeslot on Fox was X-Files. This is the timeslot that killed Firefly. Sigh.